UDINE, Italy — “The Forbidden Door” would make Hitchcock and Almodovar proud. Its protagonist, a sculptor who is both inspired and haunted by female reproduction, becomes hooked on a warped reality show that unlocks childhood secrets behind the ‘forbidden door’ in his own home.

Joko Anwar accessorizes his creepy suspense-horror with a dazzling array of auteur-homage, Freudian psychobabble, swanky art direction and a mellow ’50s jazz score. So despite the Byzantine plot and child abuse scenes that border on exploitive, film buffs and genre fans will be irresistibly seduced by the style rather than the questionable substance.

Anwar is not the first to play with twin conceits of moviegoers-as-voyeurs and cinema-as-peepshow. But this, his third work, is arguably the most polished genre film of its kind in recent Indonesian cinema. The film is both a choice pick for festival midnight sidebars and a possibility for a remake for larger markets.

To all appearances, Gambir (Fachri Alba) is the envy of his peers: He is husband to foxy Talyda (Marsha Timothy), and a darling of the art world because of his sculptures of pregnant women. Yet from the soulful, neurotic glint in his eyes, one senses something is amiss. Could it be his sexual impotence, his controlling mother, his passive-aggressive wife who keeps their red room locked, or the fishy connection between the shapely protuberances of his artwork and his frequent visits to an abortion clinic?

Even more perturbing is his recent discovery of the words “help me” encrypted all around him. The clues eventually lead him to join a Masonic club, which allows members to channel-surf strangers’ private lives. What he sees not only torments his conscience, but makes audiences accomplices in sadistic voyeurism while challenging their moral baseline.

The screenplay has as many layers as mille-feuille, and is just as hard to digest. Yet even with twist upon twist that extends beyond end credits, the film’s many puzzles finally do click into place according to the perverse logic of its surreal universe.

It is a measure of Anwar’s craft that he can present a facade of objective third-person narrative even as he funnels reality through Gambir’s subconscious. The meticulously furnished mise-en-scenes, steeped in brooding reds and blacks, look like an interior designer’s tour de force.

Moreover, the shifting ambiance of Gambir’s boho-chic bungalow and the elegant, colonial club (complete with Hitchcockian spiral staircase) gives an air of showroom artificiality that mirrors the protagonist’s feverish imagination.

Cinephiles who love to spot film references will be ticking off a long check list with Lynch in first place, followed by Hitchcock, Cronenberg’s “Videodrome” and distends to include even “Sliver” and “Vacancy.” The baroque denouement is another surprise tonal deviation to the realm of splatter films.

– Maggie Lee, The Hollywood Reporter

Traumatized by the violent, long-ago death of her mother and ignored by her distant father, virginal 20-year-old Alisha (Ladya Cheryl) spends her days cooped up at home, playing the cello and dreaming of a normal life. Closest she gets to enjoyment is replacing the white-rabbit figurines stolen by Bari (Donny Alamsyah), a buff young pool-cleaner she’s been watching from her window. Enchanted by a catchy tune he whistles, the fragile girl runs away from home and rents the apartment next door to Bari and his long-term g.f., Renta (Kinaryosih).

Arriving as the ideal new neighbor, Alisha befriends the couple and is shown around the crowded tenement by Bari, a struggling writer who knows everyone’s secrets and is using them as the basis for a novel. Claiming the building’s top floor is haunted, Bari says he has most of his work written but is frustrated by waiting for the real-life stories to reach their conclusions.

Working the line between reality and “is it all a novel?” fantasy (the title translates as “fiction”), the screenplay ramps up its thriller elements by having the increasingly unsteady Alisha seduce Bari, then orchestrates a series of violent incidents that will supply the material his work-in-progress requires. Though sequencing of events is sometimes muddled, pic boasts atmosphere and momentum as Alisha’s fixation spells doom for residents, including a reclusive old lady and two guys suspected of incestuous gay relations.

Well-cast pic makes the most of Cheryl’s doll-like features and piercing gaze to create a creepy aura around the femme fatale. Alamsyah confidently gets to grips with the scribe whose sudden glut of inspiration takes on life-or-death proportions.

Visuals generated on HD and transferred to 35mm are OK, with the best work on display in sequences tracking around moldy corridors and empty rooms in the spooky top floor. Moody, ambient score by Zeke Khaseli is the standout feature of a competent tech package.

— Richard Kuipers, VARIETY

It was Indonesia’s number one local hit in 2007, achieving a festive quality like a Christmas pantomime for adults. An irresistible pick-up for gay festivals or those serving more light-hearted fare, overseas commercial prospects are hampered by off-beat theme and rapid colloquial dialog.

Director Dimas Djayaadiningrat benefited from Joko Anwar’s (“Joni’s Promise,” “Kala”) inventive script and production house Kalyana Shira’s cosmopolitan, boutique approach to filmmaking. Relocating its sexploitation pastiche to modern uptown Jakarta, the package is technically polished and genre-savvy, invigorated by a heady mix of ’70s jive and ’80s disco fever music, and whirlwind shoots around bustling outdoor locations and sets of “Boogie Nights” splendor.

The film opens with hard-luck hero Jojo (Tora Sudiro) in a compromising position — dangling from a Ferris wheel with a deranged thug yelling death threats. It then rewinds to explain how he got there. The hyperbolic plot transports characters from kinky exploits to castration by piranha — making Jaws seem as harmless as Nemo. It takes a love pentangle, countless car-and-street chases before returning to the cliff-hanging first scene, where more reversals await.

This keeps most viewers busy enough to overlook the humiliation of older women, blatant phallic fixation and segments that play like lazy time-fillers. Acting is fine. More puerile than virile, the leads are anything but Richard Gere lookalikes in Armani suits, but they relish camping up their greasy hairdos and wimpy physiques as a style statement for the film’s celebration of weird and unorthodox concepts of beauty and sexuality.

—Maggie Lee, The Hollywood Reporter

Kala isn’t just a noir crime thriller. It has elements of horror, fantasy and political intrigue. It’s a nice mix, with gorgeous visuals and a creepy and disturbing atmosphere, but it also has a huge problem towards the end.

I loved Janji Joni, Joko’s 2005 loving ode to cinema, a colourful story about a guy who delivers film reels to cinemas who finds his daily routine becoming a desperate race against time and a quest for love. It’s one of the most original films I’ve seen, and certainly one of the best films to come out of Indonesia. You could see how much Joko is influenced by Hollywood cinema, from the Fight Club-like opening minutes to the old-time romance at the heart of the film.

But don’t expect the same feel-good-ness in Kala. This is one very dark, very ominous and graphically violent film. The first two-thirds of it is almost like Dark City as envisioned by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

The story takes place in an unnamed republic where political tension is at an all-time high, where mobs are going wild with rampage and indiscriminate killings. It’s never made clear what the problems in the country are, but Joko clearly paints a portrait of a society quickly degenerating into civil unrest, apathy, corruption and blind rage, a society on the brink of swallowing itself whole. Eros, the archetypal hardened noir detective, or who seems to be one at first, is investigating an incident where five men were burnt to death by a mob while witnesses stood by watching. One of the dead guys has a spider pendant around his neck. In comes Janus, a reporter who pursues the same case. Janus has just been through a divorce because he’s narcoleptic and can’t satisfy his wife (he falls asleep every time they’re about to get it on).

Janus tries to interview the wife of one of the five victims, but something tragic happens before he can do so. Later he discovers the name of a mysterious location, uttered by the woman earlier when she had visited the morgue, and captured on a tape-recorder he had hidden in the morgue. One of his friends listens to the tape and later meets with a grisly end after being haunted by the unsettling apparition of a pale man. And as Eros delves further into the mystery, he too begins to see the apparition. Meanwhile, Janus discovers that a lot of people are after the name of that mysterious place, and gets kidnapped by gangsters one night.

Joko plays with noir conventions, but sometimes he turns some of them on their heads, such as the hard-boiled detective who turns out to be not so typical nor so straight. The world the director creates feels extremely real, full of dilapidated buildings and decrepit apartments, and smoky underground jazz bars and rain-soaked streets. The disturbing atmosphere, draped mostly in dusky light, is very, very unsettling, and Joko punctuates the moments with equally dreary music. This looks like a ghost world, where people move through the shadows like lost spirits, and the air has the mossy taste of a tomb. Joko takes the shadowy noir setting and builds it into the perfect backdrop for horror.

From the very first frame, you’d know that you’re watching a very unusual, offbeat thriller. The story keeps you guessing at every turn. Clues are dropped, characters are introduced who add to the web of intrigue, and there’s constantly the feeling that there’s a huge surprise waiting just around the corner. The supernatural and the noir sit so well together in Joko’s hands that it seems like a forgone conclusion that they’re natural partners in crime.

But as the mystery gradually unravels, so does the story, losing itself to some degree of video-game incongruity.in its suddenly hip ending. The wonderfully realised atmosphere gives way to a stylised, hipped-up idea of archipelago myth and mysticism, with a touch of sword and sorcery. Suddenly, from Raymond Chandler-meets-Clarke Ashton-Smith in an Alex Proyas city, we’re right smack in Resident Evil territory. It’s a very bizarre direction to take, and one that makes the ending seem like it’s from another film.

But there’s no denying Joko’s visual artistry here, and his ability to build a palpable, otherworldly mood and atmosphere. Despite the strange turn of events at the end, Kala is still quite a film, and definitely something very different. I don’t believe I’ve seen anything from Indonesia quite like it. It’s worth checking out for its seamless mix of noir, horror and a good old detective yarn.

—Twitch

This was mainly because the book contains no storylines, but is more of an
episodic report on Jakarta’s clandestine, sexually charged nightlife.

What to do? Find the right storyline to link these episodes together, of
course.

Story/scribe Erwin Arnada and scriptwriter Joko Anwar seem to have come up
with quite an intriguing plot in response to the challenge.

Female stripper Vicky (Maya), who masks her sexual identity to work in a
transvestite strip club, finds herself in a life-threatening predicament
when her autistic brother Ara (Arashi) witnesses a murder by a powerful
thug, Haryo (Sardi), and his cronies (Solaiman and Wens).

When the men find out, they will do anything to get rid of the kid, and
chase Vicky and Ara all over Jakarta, prompting the two siblings to stumble
across the city’s bizarre nightlife.

Although obviously not the most original plot, it is still an interesting
and clever way to take the audience seamlessly through Emka’s eclectic book
episodes, which range from gay club activities to sashimi girls to private
orgy parties.

….

Fortunately, Joko provides the script with good dialog: smart, funny, and
logically responsible.

….

Also, there’s a more than a faint echo of Joko’s previous script, Janji
Joni.

The acting is good overall. Both Maya and Sardi are sexy as hell, Wens is
also quite good, but it’s Albar who leaves a lasting impression with his
brief portrayal of Amanda, Vicky’s transvestite best friend.

He goes beyond the tricky challenge of not overplaying a transvestite role.
He gets comfortable in it and even invents an interesting gesture that helps
define his character.

(If you notice, whenever Amanda gets threatened, she tends to grab the
people who threaten her. Could this be a sign of passive-aggressive
insecurity, confronting years of pain and social rejection? Analyze and
discuss.)

Jakarta Undercover is a fun ride, but I wish there were more to it than just
the good, thrilling cat-and-mouse chase that it is.

— The Jakarta Post

Eponymous hero and occasional narrator Joni (boyish Nicholas Saputra, who somewhat resembles Heath Ledger) is employed as a reel courier for a Jakarta cinema chain. Producers and exhibitors maximize their investment by sharing film reels between theaters and staggering screening times. Standard practice, this m.o. allows one print to service two cinemas almost simultaneously.

Couriers, such as Joni, are employed to ensure that reels arrive on time without disruption to the screenings. While waiting for his next pick-up, Joni encounters the sultry, but at this stage anonymous, Angelique (Mariana Renata), who’s waiting to see a film with her brawny film-buff b.f., Otto (Surya Supatra).

Tiring of her beau’s boorish behavior, Angelique is charmed by Joni and promises to reveal her name if he successfully delivers the reels on time. It should be just another day’s work for Joni, but just as the ante is increased, so are the obstacles he must overcome.

In addition to the usual gridlocked Jakarta traffic, Joni’s errand is detoured by bike thieves, a film shoot, a pregnancy, and even a rock band’s audition. Each complication requires substantial suspension of disbelief, but humor carries the day. Narrative digressions set at Joni’s home-base cinema also provide amusement and remind auds of the romantic prize that awaits the hero if he succeeds.

The smart premise is well handled by writer-helmer Anwar. Occasionally, his low budget lets him down, but the uncluttered helming and scripting never do. On screen 90% of the time, Saputra never ceases to appeal as the harried hero. Other perfs are less polished, but since the pic never takes itself too seriously this does no harm.

Lensing is high quality despite obvious budget constraints and the occasional illegality of the shoot. Other tech credits also make the grade. Energetic pop soundtrack maintains the same pleasing vibrancy as the camera movements and cutting.

—Russell Edwards, Variety

With a camp sensibility more often associated with Filipino cinema, film focuses on three well-to-do thirtysomething friends in contempo Jakarta. Meimei (Cut Mini) is an attractive interior designer desperate to get pregnant, but hubby Ichal (Nico Siahaan) has a wandering eye and shows little interest.

Meimei’s best friend, Sakti (Tora Sudiro), is an architect in the same firm; his obsessive quest for bodily perfection, combined with genial good looks and a fab wardrobe, are easy clues to his (albeit closeted) homosexuality.

Meimei reluctantly agrees to attend an arisan, hosted by Andien (Aida Nurmala): Gathered together is an assortment of wealthy ladies-who-lunch, the kind of women Claire Booth Luce taught the world to love. Catty remarks and one-upmanship are the name of the game, and Meimei, as the only professional woman in the pack, feels out of place. When Sakti comes to pick her up, he ends up being chosen to host next month’s get-together.

Sakti lives with his busybody mother (Lili Harahap), who brings country cousin Lita (Rachel Maryam) to stay with them in hopes a romance may develop. Sakti’s shrink (Jajang C. Noer) tries to coax him out of the closet, but her therapy isn’t helping to assuage his self-loathing. He does, however, fall for the aggressive wooing of out TV producer Nino (Surya Saputra), although Sakti rigorously maintains his charade of heterosexuality to the rest of the world.

A third plotline revolves around Andien, whose picture-perfect life falls to pieces when her husband admits to an infidelity. Though not without good moments, including a skewering of the pretentious art gallery scene, this feels like a strand come loose from a braid.

Crises temporarily mar everyone’s quest for happiness, but a light touch reigns throughout, and diNata, whose debut meller “A Courtesan” received good fest attention, wisely prevents sentimentality from marring the bouncy tone.

Although not lacking in stock characters and obvious elements, pic manages to stay amusing thanks to a playful script and enough visual humor, beginning with the opening credits, to outweigh the overlong running time. As a mainstream pic coming from a predominantly Muslim country, it stands out for its positive handling of gay themes.

Excellent casting conveys the multi-ethnic makeup of Indonesian society, and diNata has a feel for limning the upper stratas of chic Jakarta life both in her choice of location work and in her ear for dialogue. Andi Rainto’s upbeat music, with its retro ’70s feel, perfectly matches the tone. Shot on Super-16 and blown up to 35mm, pic is the first Indonesian production to use HD color enhancement during the process, and result gives the whole thing a fittingly bright feel.

—Jay Weissberg, Variety

Could’ve been learning to play music
Would’ve been making songs more than jokes

Could’ve smoked less
Would’ve been having nicer breath

Could’ve been braver to confess
Would’ve felt less afraid about death

Could’ve been walking more instead of driving
Would’ve been feeling less shitty about myself

Could’ve been wiser
Would’ve had less regrets

Could’ve been smarter
Would’ve had less heartbreaks

Could’ve watch more good movies
Would’ve saved many hours of boredom

Could’ve saved more than spending
Would’ve had a place of my own

Could’ve read more
Would’ve talked more

Could’ve slept more
Would’ve been less sleepy

Could’ve called my father
Would’ve made him talk more than three words a day

Could’ve been less jealous
Would’ve been less restless

Could’ve exercised more
Would’ve been less fat

Could’ve been braver
Would’ve saved the electricity

Could’ve convinced you that I could make you happy
Would’ve been holding you now.

Could've, Would've

I went home and decided to work on my website which should’ve been updated three years ago. After struggling with flash and xml with little success, I decided to go to sleep, a little bit past my usual bedtime (5 a.m.).

I woke up at 10 a.m. to the sound of my sms alert. I read the tragic news. Alexis Tioseco and his girlfriend were shot dead by burglars who were robbing their house. Alexis was a film critic and lecturer living in Manila. I only met him twice but his intelligence and kind personality have made an impact on me, like he did on many others in every country he visited. It was a great loss. Alexis’ departure is another big tragedy for filmmaking community after the death of Yasmid Ahmad last month.

A friend wrote on my facebook wall commenting on Alexis’ death, how the lives of some great people ended in the hands of those who don’t even know what the gift of life is. Which is very true.

I went out of the house after working on my script. My iPod shuffled some unusually somber songs in my car. I made a stop to buy some blank DVDs in a shop. I wasn’t noticing people were running out of buildings. I was about to yell to the store salesman who was only standing still behind the counter when I asked if they had what I needed. Then I realized there was an earthquake.

It took me two hours to drive to Ratu Plaza which usually only took 15 minutes. The traffic was ten times crazier than usual. The atmosphere in the city was very strange today. It felt like one of those moments in movies when the worst thing is about to happen.

And here I am, at Coffee War again.

It turns out that the solution is sooooo simple.

1. Connect your camera to your computer.
2. Open a project. Existing or new. Just save it first.
3. Open “Log and Transfer” under File tab. Add files using the folder icon on the upper left side of the browser window. Try subfolder if the actual folder which contains the files isn’t recognized.

(NOTE: If you want to copy the .mts files from your camera’s HDD to your computer’s HD or external one, maintain the file structures of the camera. Otherwise, ‘Log and Transfer’ won’t recognize your files. ALSO: (VERY IMPORTANT. I really learned this the hard way. ). I suggest you don’t delete any files in your camera’s HD from your computer. ‘Log and Transfer’ won’t recognize your files anymore. If you want to delete files on you camera’s HDD, do so ON your camera menu.

I hope this helps…